Citizens of Chicago, food-TV obsessives, our long nightmare is over:
Meet Catherine De Orio.
She's Italian. She's in her mid-30s. She lives in the West Loop. She's married to a lawyer. She has no food allergies. She has a throaty, confiding voice. Her...

By the time you read this I may already be gone, having headed for the thickest clump of wilderness, anywhere that might exist where I can still walk into a restaurant and a waiter won't ask ...
"Have you dined with us before?"
It's not the question...

In honor of National Pizza Day, we present an oldie but goody:
A few years ago, the Mayfair restaurant Marie's Pizza & Liquors appeared on the popular WTTW review show "Check, Please." Two of that week's three citizen reviewers liked Marie's. The...

As the weather heats up, so does the primal urge to grill and barbecue. A cold beer might seem like a logical choice to pair with outdoor fare, but the right wine can be equally delicious and satisfying.
The key to pairing wine with barbecued and grilled...

Returning for her second year as host of WTTW's "Check, Please!," Catherine De Orio says she’s learned a few things about hosting the show, which debuted its 14th season last week. The second episode airs Friday.
She’s got two seasons under her belt now, but when De Orio first started, she said there were a few surprises about hosting the Chicago institution.
Each 22-minute episode takes a lot of work. For a season that puts the lights on 40 restaurants, producers sort through...

Susan Robbins and her husband were renting an apartment in Andersonville when they decided to take the plunge into homeownership. They found the home of their dreams in North Park -- a brick bungalow that needed repair with a yard that needed work.
That was 18 years and a good number of to-do lists ago. For their recent remodeling and renovation work, the Robbins turned to the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative and the services of an architect. The initiative's guidelines and information about...

Alpana Singh, the bottomless source of effervescence on "Check, Please," left her day job as wine director at Lettuce Entertain You several weeks ago, and for the first time in her adult life found herself with time to burn.
So customers of Pastoral might be surprised to see one of Chicago’s most recognizable food personalities behind the cheese counter.
"Did you know you’re not supposed to cross-contaminate a blue cheese knife with another cheese?” she said with party-trivia...

The first annual 'Check, Please!' Food Truck Fest will take place at WTTW Studios (5400 N. St. Louis Ave.) from 5-8 p.m. Sept. 21. Tickets are $25 each and include two drinks and a selection of food truck fare.
Participating food trucks include Duck N' Roll, Pleasant House Bakery and Wagyu Wagon. Lagunitas Brewing Company will be providing beer and Terlato Wines will be providing wine for the evening's festivities.
More information can be found here. A special discount is being offered to WTTW...

It's 10 a.m. Do you know where your sommelier is?
If she's anything like Alpana Singh, she's already cracked her first bottle—for work, of course.
This summer, Singh has been busy tasting more than 1,000 wines to narrow her selection for the 300 or so varieties she'll put on the menu at The Boarding House, a multi-level restaurant she's opening in River North at 720 N. Wells St. with her partners later this month.
"I've been doing wine tastings in the party room of my building," said Singh, 35,...

Condolences to the friends and family of chef Michael Altenberg, chef/owner of Bistro Campagne (4518 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-271-6100), who passed away suddenly in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Altenberg, 48, was a first-rate chef; his resume reads like a history of Chicago fine dining. He was head chef at Avanzare, Cassis, Gordon and Montparnasse restaurants; he worked at Le Francais in the Jean Banchet days. He opened Campagnola in Evanston, Crust pizzeria in Wicker Park and Bistro Campagne, all as...